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9288
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The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
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Full Idea:
The magic of Asclepius, reinterpreted through Plotinus, enters with Ficino's De Vita into the neo-platonic philosophy of the Renaissance, and, moreover, into Ficino's Christian Platonism.
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From:
Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.4)
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A reaction:
Asclepius is the source of 'Hermetic' philosophy. This move seems to be what gives the Renaissance period its rather quirky and distinctive character. Montaigne was not a typical figure. Most of them wanted to become gods and control the stars!
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9291
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The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
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Full Idea:
The dating by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 of the Hermetic writings as not the work of a very ancient Egyptian priest but written in post-Christian times, is a watershed separating the Renaissance world from the modern world.
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From:
Frances A. Yates (Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition [1964], Ch.21)
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A reaction:
I tend to place the end of the Renaissance with the arrival of the telescope in 1610, so the two dates coincide. Simply, magic was replaced by science. Religion ran alongside, gasping for breath. Mathematics was freed from numerology.
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24043
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Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle]
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Full Idea:
Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven.
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From:
report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30
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A reaction:
Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic.
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